Islay History

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Life for fishermen on Islay in the 1890s, as at many other times, was precarious and dangerous. These reports highlight several incidents from the period, including two court cases and a drowning.

The first report is of a strike by fishermen from Port Wemyss, which led to three people being jailed. They seem to have been convicted under Combinations of Workmen Act 1825, a law passed to restrict trade unions and picketing.

ISLAY FISHERMEN CONVICTED OF ILLEGAL COMBINATION

(Aberdeen Journal, Saturday 22 November 1890)

'A case of illegal combination among fishermen has just been tried at Inveraray before Sheriff Campbell Shairp. Three fishermen, Duncan Anderson, George Anderson, and Malcolm M’Neil, residing at Port Wemyss Islay, were charged with having on the 27th August last, at Loch Grinnard, Islay, formed part of a disorderly crowd for the purpose of preventing the lawful landing and disposal of herrings from fishing boats, and the lawful conveyance of the same from Loch Grinnard to Bruichladdich, and with having committed a breach of the peace. The men pleaded not guilty.

Mr MacLullich, Procurator-Fiscal, prosecuted, and Mr George Crawford, writer, appeared for the defence. A number of witnesses were examined, including several fish buyers and fishermen. From the evidence it appeared that the fishermen in the district had held a meeting and resolved to strike. The motive for this was the low price they were getting for their fish. On the night of the 26th August five boats went out, and this action on the part of their owners was resented by the other fishermen, who gathered in a body next morning to prevent the landing of the fish. There were from forty to a hundred persons in the crowd according to different witnesses. A successful attempt was made to prevent the men in the boats from putting the fish ashore, and some carts which had been sent to convey the herrings from Loch Grinnnard to Bruichladdich were forcibly turned back. Threats were made by some members of the crowd, although no actual violence was committed.

Mr MacLullich asked the Sheriff to deal severely with what was an act of illegal combination. Mr Crawford, for the defence, submitted that the men did nothing but what they were legally entitled to do. They simply said, in a civil way, 'You are not to land your fish.'

The Sheriff —They said 'You are not to do it': that is distinctly illegal. Mr Crawford held it was not proved that anything any of the prisoners did was really in the nature an an illegal act. His lordship found the charge against the three men proven. The charge, he said, was a very serious one. It was a very distressing thing to see decent men like the accused, who wore not men of the criminal class at all, charged with such an offence. The offence was one of a very important character. It was a breach of the peace of the worst description. The law in regard to such affairs as they had been engaged in was perfectly clear. It was that they might strike among themselves as much as they liked, and they might refuse to work to any employer; but the moment they tried to prevent other people from working, from taking any contract, the law would at once visit that offence in a way that would show what a grievous offence it was. It had been said there was no violence used on this occasion. The only reason no violence was used was that none was needed. The crowd came in such force that no man there could cope with it. They prevented the fishermen in the five boats from landing their herrings, and they turned the carts. They were thus interfering with people who were perfectly free to enter into any arrangements if they chose. They had done that in an out-of-way part of the country, where it was not easy to protect the people who were molested. Duncan Anderson and Malcolm M'Neil, who had been previously convicted, were each sentenced to 60 days imprisonment with hard labour; George Anderson was sentenced to 60 days’ imprisonment'.

The following year there was another dispute at Gruinart, this time a clash between Islay fishermen and their counterparts from Campbeltown. The latter in were fishing off Islay using trawl nets, whereas the Islay fishermen only used drift nets. This was seen as a threat to the livelihood to the Ileachs and the Campbeltown fisherman, on the beach at Gruinart, 'were surrounded by 500 fishermen, who pelted them with stones and other missiles' (Dundee Courier, 25 September 1891).

A court case relating to 'The Islay Fishermen's Riot' took place at Inverary, again before Sheriff Shairp, in December 1891, with eight people charged with contravening 'the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875 and also with mobbing and rioting'

The dangers facing fishermen were highlighted in 1893 when two fishermen were reported drowned on a skiff 'manned by Donald Anderson, aged 20, son of the owner, and Alexander Graham, aged 34'. They failed to return to Port Ellen, and later 'the mast and sail of the boat were found washed up on the beach... The bodies had not been recovered' (Edinburgh Evening News, 31 January 1893).

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Marquis De Ruvigny's Roll Of Honour was a privately published 'biographical record of all members of his majesty's naval and military forces' who died in the First World War. The first of five volumes was published in 1916. It seems that friends and family members paid for the entries, and it is not a comprehensive list of the war dead. But the volumes do include biographies of 26,768 Army, Navy and Air Force men, with many photographs. Some of the volumes are freely available to look at/download on archive.org (volume one here,volume three here) while the fulll text is also accessible to subscribers at genealogy sites such as ancestry and genesreunited.

I have searched all volumes for Islay connections and have come across four records:

David Dick, born at Foreland, Islay in 1888, went to Calgary in Canada in 1907 and worked as a farmer. He enlisted in November 1914 and went to the Western Front with the 2nd Mounted Rifles, Canadian Expeditionary Force, and died at No. 2 Canadian Casualty Clearing Station in November 1917 'from wounds received in action at Passchendale'.

Henry McCuaig Lamont was born in Port Ellen in 1888 and his wife Maggie McCuaig was also from Islay, though he seems to have gone to school in Glasgow. He had been in the army before the war, and rejoined the Royal Scots regiment in 1914. He was killed in action at the Battle of Le Cateau in August 1914.

Neil McKerrell was born in Bowmore in 1897 and grew up in Glasgow. He enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery in 1915 and served as a driver with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in Palestine. He died of pneumonia in 1918, and is buried in the military cemetery in Beirut.

Murdoch Archibald Mactaggart was born in Islay in 1895, the son of Colonel Murdoch Mactaggart of Royal Bank, Bowmore and Flora MacGilchrist (whose father the Rev. John MacGilchrist had been Minister of the Kilarrow Parish Church in Bowmore - the round church). He worked at a solicitors firm in Bowmore before joining the army in 1913. A captain in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, he was killed in action at Roeux near Arras in May 1917.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Today is the 100th anniversary of the entry of Britain into what was to become known as the First World War - or as they called it immediately afterwards, the Great War (not imagining then that another terrible conflict could happen again so quickly). Here's a list of 203 First World War casualties believed to have been born in Islay, or living in Islay prior to enlisting. This does not include those from elsewhere who died in the seas around Islay during the war, which I will come back too in a later post.

Yesterday I published a list of the names mentioned on Islay war memorials. I have now cross-referenced this with information on Islay casualties from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site, which 'provides information about men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died during the two world wars and the places where they are buried or commemorated'. This includes a lot more detail than the Islay war memorials, including date of death, age, details of relatives and burial place. I have not found CWGC records for all those listed on the Islay war memorials, and conversely I have found Ileachs at CWGC who do not seem to be mentioned on the Islay memorials.

Where I have combined information from the two sources into one entry on list, I have only done so where all details match. There may be a few people listed twice on the list below therefore, but we shouldn't assume the same name means its one person - a lot of people did have the same name as somebody else on Islay.

In the table below I have included name, what Islay memorial they are listed on (if any), where on Islay they were from (as stated on memorial or on CWGC), regiment, date of death, age, and names of relatives (usually parents but sometimes wife).

I couldn't fit all the information I have on this page. If you want to see the full spreadsheet click here. The expanded spreadsheet also includes rank, battalion as well as regiment, service number, and place of burial or remembrance (which indicates where they died).

Please do let me know if you notice any errors or ommissions, or you have any further information. Either leave a comment or email me at neilgordonorr at gmail.com (replace 'at' with @).

About this blog

This blog aims to include historical material about the Isle of Islay in the Inner Hebrides. Yes there will be shipwrecks, whisky and Lords of the Isles, but also some wider social and cultural history.

Islay History Books

You can buy lots of Islay history books and related stuff from The Celtic House in Bowmore aka Roy's - click on image for their website/online shop. My favourite Islay shop (apart from the Co-op of course without which there would be mass starvation on Islay)

Islay History and Me

So why am I doing a blog on Islay history? My father came from Islay and I have been there at least twenty times, including almost every summer during my childhood. So I have spent more time there than most other places on the planet.

As a sometime historian I have always been interested in the island's rich history, traces of which dating back to the neolithic period are still very visible on Islay. Over the years I have accumulated quite a bit of knowledge and information about the subject, and as nobody else seems to be doing an Islay history site as such I wasn't sure what to do with it. So while in Bowmore in August 2012 I started this blog.

Contact

Comments, suggestions and collaborators more than welcome. My email is neilgordonorr at gmail.com (replace 'at' with @ - trying to avoid too much spam)